


Midnight

by Sheniru



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hannibal Loves Will, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Mostly at himself, Nightmares, Pining, Post-Episode: s02e08 Su-zakana, Will is angry at everybody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 08:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7352893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheniru/pseuds/Sheniru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Shi-Zakana missing scenes] After being release from incarceration, Will finds himself in a position where he needs Hannibal's help, but cannot ask for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight

Will sighed as he looked at his watch. He toyed with the case, fingers pressed onto the bezel, causing it to oscillate up and down in short motions. The skittish reflection travelled in between tired blue eyes, sending light to the darker thoughts that clouded his face. He considered the people he could call. Even in dismissing the late hour, there was not many contenders left. He did not want to talk to Alana, and he would not call Jack. Beverly’s number would ring and ring with no-one picking it up. He had yet to delete her number; just the thought of it made his blood turn to acid. Nothing would make Hannibal Lecter more happy than to hear from him, and that was precisely why he would not get the call. Will smiled bitterly. The irony would be to turn to the one responsible in architecting his own isolation for help. It left him with only the company of his dogs. 

He tapped nervous fingers on the surface of his watch, hoping for time to accelerate or slow down; either would be fine. When he realized this was not happening, he threw his head back against the wall in defeat. The ceiling was always a bitter sight to behold, it was a matter of habit. Will took a few seconds to consider waking up Zeller in bed, and to be truthful, it wasn’t as much of a bad idea as it sounded. Their last exchange hadn’t been hostile and there was something appealingly cruel in putting the man in Beverly’s boots… Yet, acting out on such a plan made Will nauseous. He did not have Zeller's personal phone number, in any case.

He dragged himself to his bed, the absence of light making it hard to maneuver without stepping on some dog’s tail. He felt so unsteady on both of his legs it called up to mind being on the deck of a boat adrift in the middle of a storm. Most of the dogs were sleeping on their cot, breathing in harmony, their vague outline a reassurance his ship was yet not sinking between the waves of the sea. Will unclipped his watch and placed it on the nightstand. He grabbed at one of his pillows and fluffed it roughly, before slipping it behind his back. His chest was slightly constricted, keeping his breathing hard to manage and his heart was thumping so hard in his ribcage it was actually painful. He placed one hand cautiously over it, feeling its pressured drumming beating under his skin, closed his eyes and concentrate on the pace. 

Instead of the river he was so used to see, he found the bars of his old prison cell, the same cold, claustrophobic environment he had inhabited for the past few months. He should have felt like a trapped animal, but as much as Will dreaded confinement, he could not shake the feeling of relief at being out of reaches from what was preying outside. He could still not say for sure if he was being hunted or enticed out. He looked down at his hands, flip them around to be sure they were not tainted, before he placed them over his ears, fingers digging between locks of hair. Maybe they should have left him there. 

He turned feverishly on his side and was assailed by the blue light of his alarm clock. He blinked several time until the numbers came to focus. Midnight. Shouldn’t he have called Hannibal already? He remembered past incidents where, still excused by blindness, he’d considered it. He couldn’t tell if it had happened, if he’d ever woken the man up, in the intimacy of the night. His recent memories were nothing to rely on.

He scratched his nails over his scruffy cheeks, before slipping his fingers up to rub his eyes. He reviewed his many possibilities yet again, feeling the pulse of adrenaline wash over him. It was a circular exercise that left him with an acrid taste in the back of his throat. He extended his right arm and reached out to pet Winston’s fur, who was sleeping on the carpet by the side of the bed. He focussed on the breathing of his dogs, eyes closed. He let the impulse of reaching out to someone wash over him, silencing the thoughts still festering his mind. His boat had steadied itself, the ocean seemed to give him some respite.

.

He awoke in a gasp.

Will was watching the ceiling collapsing upon him, tears welling at the corner of his eyes, mouth dry and still panting, entire body covered in cold sweat. His hair were lumped on his forehead and his limbs paralyzed on each of his side. His hands were gripped to the mattress, as though the tide was menacing to take him away. 

He tried to move, waves of disgust and self-hatred splashing down on the hull of his bed, but his body was unresponsive; it still believed itself pierced by antlers, heavy and dead. He managed to place his two palm flatly over his face, and exhaled all the air he had in his lungs, feeling his head spin over and over. When he began breathing again, he just couldn’t stop.

He slipped out of the bed and pulled at his curtains, revealing a bright moon up in the sky, round and pale, like an eye always watching him from afar. His yard was still, quiet and peaceful, covered by layers of white snow; he could spot the indents of paws where his dogs had run by, in the afternoon. The traces disappeared when they reached the hard line of dark trees that cut the landscape in half, a fathomless army standing guard. They now looked like a poor consolation from the protection conferred by his cell.

His breathing kept on accelerating, becoming uncontrollable, his body so hot he thought he was burning. He wrapped both his arms around his body, walking in a shaky pace towards the desk near the staircase. He was nauseous, could feel his line of sight blurred and diminished; anxious thoughts of falling unconscious grappled at the back of his mind. He nearly fell as his thigh bumped against the wooden table. His hand pushed at pencils and folders, fishing line and lures; he cursed his littered mess. He nearly knocked his lamp to the floor by pushing some books around, before shaky fingers settled upon the solid shape of his cell phone, plugged on its charger. He took two steps back, gasped as he felt one of the dog pass very quickly between his legs. 

He did not even bother with the list of phone numbers already recorded in the device, he dialled it by heart. The tiny numbers in the corner flashed indignantly, his brain cried in protest. Midnight, in the dead of the night. He placed one hand around his neck, searching for the shoelace that was strangling him. He nearly dropped the phone when he heard the voice answer back. 

"Hello?" 

_That voice_ , deep and familiar; he sighed in relief. He attempted to say something at first but the words were choked out of his mouth, letters falling down all over the carpet. He tried two more times before he managed to articulate something. 

"Doctor... I'm..." 

"Will." 

He could not talk any further. He was making loud gasps of air while trying to breath, his body constricted with pain.

"Will you are having a panic attack. I want you to listen to me." Hannibal spoke with a crisp, emphatic tone. Still it was hard to focus on the meaning of those words. He repeated the sentences two, three times to be sure it had sinked in… The voice was like a guide, a beacon in the fog he could set sail to. He pressed his phone closer to his ears and clung on to it, trembling like a leaf. He let his body slip to the ground, leaning back against the table, mangled sound still erupting from his mouth.

"I'm... Ugh… I can't breath." 

"Open and close your mouth." Hannibal responded. “What you are experiencing is scary, but it won’t hurt you.” He insisted on the instructed motions before he pursued.”Breath with me, Will." 

And Will did. Slowly, gently. He took deep inhalations and then exhaled, as Hannibal started to count each out loud, and Will did his best to keep up. He was trying to focus on one point in the room, a constant, but his eyes kept steered back towards the window, where the curtains barely hid what was waiting for him outside. It didn’t matter, whatever layers of cloth, whatever bricks and wooden planks could find themselves in his way, he could still escape, and he could still be found. 

"Don't go into yourself Will. Concentrate on your breathing." 

Will banged his head hard against the table. A loud thud echoed all across the room and made two dogs bark out in surprise. It hurt, but the pain steered back his mind to reality.

“Will!” 

“I’m breathing.” He managed to say, closing his eyes as he focused on his lungs, and shut down everything else. “I’m breathing, _Hannibal_.”

There was a slight pause. 

“Good. Breath with me.” He pushed the air out of his lungs and Will tried to welcoming it in his, as if they were face to face. He tried to concentrate on this pretend presence, of them close, Hannibal’s arms over his own, the warmth of his chest pressed on his back, strong hands folded against his belly, following through each of its motions. The belief he had a friend there with him regardless of the why, felt like salve on his wounds.

Slowly, his body relaxed and his breathing slowed down. Nausea was still present but the cramps were gone, and he slowly started to feel numb, exhausted like he’d just run ten miles. He realized he had one hand still clutched at his heart, and slowly unfolded it, spread it out flat against his thigh. 

"You're getting through, Will." The younger man tried to smile, he just wasn’t sure he wanted to. This newfound peace was fragile; he could taste the distinguished flavour of consequences blooming on his tongue. His head fell down on the side, crushing the phone against his shoulder, and a strange buzz enveloped his head. Wasn’t the voice on the other side of the phone the one who had caused him so much dismay in the first place?

"It's midnight." He heard himself whispering. 

"It is. Do not worry about it." 

He ended the conversation when he felt himself strong enough to do so. He did not apologizes, but he did express his gratitude. He could see the flashing numbers of his alarm clock, still stuck on the same combination. 00:00. It was good, he tried to convince himself, all of this was good for the bigger picture. It would harden the trust he was trying to establish with his psychiatrist, and accelerate his eventual apprehension. He let out a sob, his head falling back between his legs, his mind so terribly exhausted. It didn’t feel good at all. He looked at his dogs, lined up at a distance, pearly black eyes always watching, silent and without judgement.

He dumped the cell phone back on the table.

.

There was a dead body on the floor. It had a dull look. Will blinked twice, standing above it. There was a dead body on _his_ floor, broken amidst the shards of glass, dark blood streaking its white face. Will was steady, breathing slowly, eyes extinguished. None of his dogs dared to make a single noise, calmly complying with the silence. Buster was licking at his wounds, making loud, slurry noise. The wind was rushing through the smashed window, blowing the curtains everywhere, bringing winter inside his living room. 

He staggered to some seating and crashed onto it, face as pale as the moon. He flattened his hand over his mouth, then all the way up to his forehead. He tried to regain his senses; euphoria slowly dissipating, leaving him in a body that was both heavy and hard to move around. He was hanging at the end of a dream without possibility to wake up, and the world was shutting down around him. Everything would remained blandly real. 

He looked at his watch, the quadrant covered with speckles of blood. It was ten, he would be at Hannibal's for midnight. He had to look twice to the floor to make sure his psychiatrist wasn’t the one lying there with a twisted neck. His eyes wandered to Randall Tiers, then at his own hand. He pressed one finger over the knuckles, trying to remember the feeling of Hannibal’s skin as he crushed it over and over again in a fit of burning passion. The delirious pleasure of snapping his neck, the power that had coursed through him, had dazzled him. His hands were burning.

He allowed his head to fall back, baring his throat, and exhaled all the air he had in his lungs. The smell of blood and death was coating the air, seeping through the fabric of his curtains and the fibres of the carpet. Soon he’d have to move, take his car and drive into the night, but he wasn’t ready to open his eyes yet. The body wouldn’t go away, in any case.

A body. 

Smiling in death. 

.

It was midnight. He let his head rest on the older man's shoulder, eyes closed, locks of brown hair rolling against his neck, his strained body collapsed on his side. He kept his eyes down on the table where his hands laid, stretched and forgotten, snuggly wrapped in clean bandages. There was a clock somewhere in the room who was loudly ticking, like a countdown to events he couldn’t stop anymore. He was good, he felt good, but the presence of the other man bothered him. He imagined Hannibal's gaze above him, his pride and self-congratulation beaming through, but he missed its exact opposite. Not confidence, no victories. Hannibal looked utterly vulnerable. 

"I'm tired." Will said feverishly. “I don’t believe I’ll be able to do much more tonight.”

"You can rest." Hannibal whispered, voice barely controlled. It was heavy, gentle; cautious as someone trying not to crumble a house of cards. "Don't worry about anything." 

“Okay.” 

Will’s consciousness was taking a flight all the way above the darkened sky. He was not happy, but he still tried to smile. He could hear Hannibal’s heartbeat clearly, thumping low against his own. He knew if he was to close his eyes now, his sleep would go uninterrupted, that the nightmares would evaporate. He had little fight left in him anyway. 

He was already dozing off when an hesitant arm wrapped itself around him, pulling him slightly closer. It was a bold, yet delicate move, a shift of his position so he would be more comfortable.

Hannibal had not seen Will sleep since the last time they went to Minnesota together. He'd not heard his shallow whispers since that prison conversation where the younger man, glassy eyes and quivering lips, talk to him of poison and comfort. He did not dare move from a single inch, eyes carefully studying Will’s every details, not unlike the concentration he exert while working on his drawings. 

He'd never considered romance as nothing more than poetry. 

He allowed himself a moment to appreciate the weight on his shoulder, the motion of Will’s chest against his own each time he breathed, or his scent, hidden under thick layers of terrible aftershave, of pine and cedar and evergreen and snow. He hoped something, anything would permeate to his clothes, for him to keep.

He waited a long time before he decided he should at least led Will to a couch. 

.

Will was suckling at the edge of a Whiskey glass, looking through the broken window with veiled regrets, one hand resting on the frame so he would not be off-balance. He’d dropped a similar glass full of alcohol earlier that week, splatter marks still visible on his wooden floor and the smell lingered on, stronger every day passing; he’d had nervous nights. He looked softened by the alcohol, but his eyes were alert and searching through the darkness for sudden motions, ready to lunge at the tell-tale sign. 

He took another sip of his drink, letting the Whiskey roll over his tongue before it sunk in deeper. Maybe he was drunk. It was approaching midnight and he was beginning to have trouble detailing his surroundings, tired eyes stinging through the hardship. A futile exercise nonetheless. Of course he did not need to, he owned seven dogs. 

He knew nothing else would come out of the woods, but the dull ache that plagued him ever since he’d kill Randall Tier was less of a bother when he stood guard by his porch, or window. He considered it a kind of meditation. Sometime, he’d picture Garett Jacob Hobbs by his side, sneering and pointing at dark corners of his yard, face twisted by a crooked smile. _See?_ See.

Whenever he closed his eyes now, Will found comfort, and he wanted nothing more than to get rid of it.

.

Will shut down the conversation abruptly, cheeks red with irritation. He watched the bright light of his mobile’s luminosity until it died down in its natural way, leaving no trace on the pristine black screen, then he got up and took a short stride to relax his strained legs. The tension didn’t melt away as he wished it would. He didn't deal well with anger, it fuelled bad parts of his mind. 

Jack shouldn't bother him at 12 AM with _his_ worries when Will was the one who was baring out his throat to the beast. Nothing of the words uttered had had the tact and delicacy he should have shown, none should have even reached him in the first place. Will was a friend, but Jack didn't know how to treat friends. 

He finally let go of his phone, watched it clattered down on the table like a discarded can of soda. It clashed with the lamp, emitted a very clear ting which made Zoe bark two times, and then growled once. He wrapped himself in a discarded woollen vest and poured himself more Whiskey, maybe a little bit too much. He could not lose his nerves, not when he was playing such a complicated game. Not over something as insignificant as that.

_I need to be certain you’re my man. Can I be certain of you, Will?_ It weighed upon him like the blade of a guillotine. Made his blood rush and his heart beat faster. He could hear Hannibal's voice in his head, soothing him, already instructing him on how to breath and he nearly spit out his alcohol.


End file.
